


Where Do We Go From Here?

by Linnrinn



Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:48:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28211898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linnrinn/pseuds/Linnrinn
Summary: Quynh returns to the family with a caveat. The immortal family will have to learn how to begin filling the cracks of betrayal left behind by one of their own before they can move forward.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Death Is Only The Beginning... [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066418
Comments: 4
Kudos: 48





	Where Do We Go From Here?

**Author's Note:**

> I've heard people side with Booker and people side with Joe on the whole issue of the betrayal and banishment. honestly, i find both sides compelling and interesting in their own right, so in this story and following ones ive liked to write both perspectives. so if you feel i've catered to Booker here too much, my writings later dont kid glove him. Joe has every right to feel betrayed, angry, to want justice, and to need time to forgive. It's ok to empathize with Booker as well. we've all been in so much pain and grief that it clouds you to the point that you don't know whats up or down, and you make mistakes or wrong others in that headspace. i get both and see both.  
> i also liked to imagine what it would have been like to hear Booker in Nile's position of talking about the dreams and seeing their reactions to it.  
> i also feel like Andy takes alot on her shoulders and puts the responsibility on herself to take care of the others. so after dealing with the betrayal against her, i can see her blaming herself so that was interesting to write and explore.

The morning sun shone brightly over smartly lined stalks of corn who were silent observers of a family broken and beginning the journey to mending. It wasn’t a pretty view but a rather unkempt one. A crushed and collapsed silo shadowed them, piles of corn framing the group and crunching under the feet of three figures as they fished a fourth from the rubble. Two white men, a black woman, and a brown man emerge from the clouds of dust and other fumes let off by the silo, hacking and coughing. Thank goodness the other two women were down wind. Speaking of the other two, the Vietnamese woman was crying, big heaving jags while the other woman cradled her even as she sat bleeding on the ground. It was messy, but family always is.

“We are going home, Quynh,” Andy told her. “And you are coming with us.” Joe and Nicky agreed upon their approach, coming forward to kneel down next to them both.

Quynh pulled back from them and stared down at her clenched fists in her lap. Her inhales were uneven and ragged as she answered. “I…I don't know.”

Nicky frowned and made an abortive move to kneel and place a hand on hers before thinking better of it and withdrawing. “We want you with us, Quynh. We’ve spent enough years without you.”

The warriors had all recovered their weapons and to see Nicky kneeling next to them, the top of his long sword now buried point down in the dirt, gave the picture an aged feel. Nile felt like she could almost see Nicky in his armor, head bowed in prayer for a bloody and misleading calling. Joe stood proud next to them, his saif evidence of his mastery in swordsmanship as a warrior. The blood decorating Andy’s torso only testified to her long lifetimes as a battle-hardened soldier. Her labrys lay next to her knees in docile warning, its blades having witnessed it fair share of humanity’s experiences. Quynh’s kiem lay a few feet away, blade red with the blood of those she had called family so many centuries ago. Nile was not familiar with traditional Vietnamese clothing, but the long sleeves and flowing length of her jacket helped her imagine the Quynh from centuries ago. In all, it was a picture of timelessness, of history and the present colliding and barreling towards an unknown future.

Quynh shook her head. “I just don't know if I should. In my head, I know you tried to find me. You all did. But I’m still…still s-so angry…and h-hurt. And…”

“It’s alright to be all of those things. You went through a hell none of us can imagine.” Nicky soothed.

“I can imagine,” Booker groaned before coughing up more corn from his lungs. Nile reached over, firmly thumping him on the back while shushing him fiercely.

“We aren’t going to leave you alone. Not after all that and not after we got you back. You're coming with us,” Joe said firmly.

Quynh’s chin quivered even as more tears welled in her dark eyes. Her fists clenched and her shoulders tensed, the only visible signs of some struggle she fought within herself. It seemed for a moment that she would refuse, her spine stiffening with denial, until Andy’s hand reached out and gently covered one of her fists. Both women’s eyes met, a novel of words, pleas and fears passing in fathomless depths between them. Quynh finally nodded.

“Very well. I will come with you.”

Relief was palpable in Andy’s face, a small smile resting at the corner of her mouth. Nicky grinned as they kneeled on the ground and Joe crouched next to him, his wide grin holding nothing back as he rejoiced in their reunion.

Nile felt like she was watching someone put together a puzzle to completion, the satisfaction and rightness of that final piece fitting into place, revealing a whole and complete picture. Oddly enough, for the first time since joining them, Nile felt excluded, on the outside looking in. It was new and uncomfortable, and she ruthlessly pushed it away. These four immortals had lived centuries together and lost each other for centuries, and she refused to view it with anything other than happiness. Her stomach still felt heavy and her heart felt bruised.

Joe and Nicky eased the ladies into standing, Joe supporting Andy when she weaved from pain and blood loss. Quynh gave a distressed look to the older woman and Nicky finally patted her shoulder comfortingly, assuring her the wound was not fatal despite needing stitches and cleaning. As one, they turned towards the car in the distance. Nile moved to follow, only to pause and look back when she noticed an empty space next to her.

“Andy.” She called out. The group paused, all of them looking back at her call. Nile herself turned to look at Booker, who was still standing from where they’d pulled him from the rubble and dried corn, hands shoved into his pockets, shoulders hunched defensively, and jaw clenched.

“We can’t just leave him,” she implored quietly, but firmly.

Andy’s green eyes were sad, but her mouth was set in a stalwart line. “Kid, he’s got ninety-nine years and change left to go.”

“Andy!” Nile shook her head. As young as she was for an immortal, Nile knew that sometimes the group looked at her as a child. In comparison to them, she was. She never really minded it. Agreed with it in some ways. But she was also an adult, a woman, and a goddamn marine, and all those things gave her the right to her voice. “We can’t just leave him.”

A hand on her shoulder had her turning to look up to Booker. He smiled, lips curving under his light blond beard, but Nile saw past it to the subdued pain and reluctant acceptance masked by that smile’s bravado. It hurt her heart to see it, lurking in the corners like a wounded and cowering animal.

“It’s fine, Nile.” He gave her a gentle push to the small of her back. “Don't worry about me. What’s a few years, hm?”

Nile’s gaze swung helplessly between the four and Booker, heart feeling fractured over the obvious division. “Joe! Nicky! Please. He’s going to have to watch us all walk away from him together, without him.”

Sympathy marked Joe’s face as he listened to Nile’s plea, but his jaw clenched when he refocused on Booker. “He chose this, Nile. He made his decision, and each decision has consequences for good or bad.”

“Joe-”

“He betrayed this family, _Saghirti_ , and in doing so gave up the right to be a part of it.”

Nicky approached her and gently took her hand in his. “Come, Nile.” He gave her hand a squeeze, acknowledging how hard this was but gently pulling her all the same.

With an easy move, she gently broke his hold and grabbed his hand instead. “No, Nicky. Please. You of all people should know what I am asking for here. I know there are consequences. I know that Booker is responsible for his choices. But today you guys gained someone you’d thought lost for ever. Don’t let Booker be the only one to be lost and still left behind.”

Nicky stared down at her, brows furrowed.

“I’m asking for mercy, Nicky. I _know_ he doesn’t deserve it. That’s what makes it mercy.”

The Italian continued to look down at Nile, his blue eyes shadowed by his brown hair, pausing at her words. Nile could seem him processing and she appreciated that he had listened. Without turning his eyes from hers, he spoke.

“Yusuf.”

Nile could see the darker skinned man from her vantage point and noted his clenched fists and jaw set in anger. Nicky didn’t seem to even need to look to know what his soul’s other half was struggling with. He squeezed Nile’s hand reassuringly and returned to Joe’s side.

“ _Qalbi_. _Habibi_. Please.” The endearments in Arabic were whispered with both understanding and patience, not a hint of anger.

Joe’s brown eyes were glassy with unshed tears as he reached out to cradle Nicky’s face with both of his hands. He spoke Italian in return for Nicky’s Arabic, each showing the other their willingness to listen to the other and ensure understanding. “ _Every time I see his face, tesoro mio, I see you strapped to that table to be treated like an animal. An object. I watched your pain as you died at the hands of that bitch of a doctor over and over and-_ ”

Nicky placed his hands on top of Joe’s. “ _And I watched the same, amore. I was there with you. And because I know of that pain, I would never force you to make this decision. If you decide against it, I will support you regardless._ ”

Both of them took a breath and Nicky continued in English. “I’m asking if you can find it in you to allow him back to us. You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to excuse or suddenly get over what he did. You are allowed to be angry and hurt. I surely am. I’m furious! But I’m asking if you would allow him anyway. Give him the chance to be more than his worst mistake.”

The two men bring their foreheads together, as if passing words directly through their touch. Nicky knew all about being defined by your worst mistake.

“Can we trust him?” Joe finally asked.

“He is family.” Nicky sighed. “We won’t ever know unless we give him the chance to prove it.”

The taller man sighed and looked at the others around him, obviously looking for their input.

Nile raised her hands in response, a peacekeeping motion. “I won’t weigh in anymore, Joe. You know where I am on this.”

Andy said nothing, her face revealing nothing. She simply stood still, holding onto Quyhn as she watched. There were a few moments where the group held themselves on the edge of decision, hovering a thin line which they could fall to either side of at any moment. It was a precarious, breathless position to hold and Nile felt the weight of the moment acutely in her chest.

“Let him come.”

Everyone turned in surprise to the Vietnamese woman encircled in Andy’s arms.

“If I come, he comes too.” She repeated. Even Booker was shocked out of the morose, distanced gaze he’d sat in as the rest of them had argued.

“Quynh,” Joe started, only to stop when she shook her head.

“No.” She stated vehemently. “Both of us or I don’t go with you.” Then she gentled. “Joe, if you can forgive me this,” she gestures to the whole of them and then hovered over Andy’s wound,” and this, then you can forgive him of all that he’s done.”

“It’s different,” Joe answered.

“How?” Quynh asked. “His actions hurt you. My actions hurt Andy. Your actions, or my feeling like there was lack thereof, hurt me, as unintentional as it may have been. It’s not different.”

Joe’s feet squared and his brow furrowed, a sure sign he was going to argue. Nile gingerly placed a hand on Joe’s arm and the other on Nicky’s. “You don't have to forgive him now. That takes time. And that’s ok. It’s something most of us have right now.” Her eyes darted to Andy. “One of us does not, and it would be a gift to them to allow this.”

The older man tensed for a moment before placing a gentle hand on Nile’s. He nodded tightly before pulling Nicky protectively to his side and marched towards the car. Andy nodded at Nile and herded Quynh in the same direction, leaving the other two immortals.

Nile turned to him. “Booker?” She held out a hand.

Booker’s blue eyes flashed with undisguised longing, but he hesitated. “I-I don't know, Nile. I don’t know if I am good for this family. What if I fuck it up again? What if they never forgive me?”

“Booker,” she called gently, extending her arm further and splaying her fingers wider. She takes a step towards him, only for him to retreat one step away, a dance that Nile would have found amusing at any other time. Instead, she waited in that waltz in three-four count of _beckon, retreat, entreat_.

“What if I am just meant to corrupt everything around me? I can’t do that. Not again.” He wilts, shoulders straining under the invisible weight of his past choices and the fears of further unknown.

Nile’s brown eyes flared with compassion and she took another cautious step, to which the tall frame curled in on itself even more. _Beckon, retreat, entreat._

“The fact that you even care to ask those questions is a step in the right direction.” _Beckon, retreat, entreat._ “Now take another step.” She encouraged him.

Nile takes one more step and takes his hand. Gently, she pulls him towards the directions of the others. He resists her pull for just a moment before one scuffed boot takes a step. Then another. Corn crunches under his feet, dust still chokingly thick around them. His eyes water, from the dust or the tears, he doesn’t quite know. He just places one foot in front of the other, following the gentle pull of the women in front of him.

\- - -

The car ride is quiet and awkward, the only bright side being that the vehicle was an SUV so there was enough room that they weren’t on top of each other. Nile sat in the back with Joe and Nicky in a show of solidarity for them just as much as she had done for Booker. Joe and Nicky watched the other man warily while Booker was making concentrated efforts to not look at anyone. He did his best to hunch is long frame as small as possible, trying to take up as little space as he could in the front row. For such a tall man it would have been laughable if the situation had allowed for amusement.

Andy, of course, was driving, despite her wound. Quynh was staring through the windshield from the passenger seat in a daze, the only anchor for her seeming to be one of her hands held in Andy’s. As deadly and fierce as Nile had seen Quynh at that farm, she now seemed to be fragile, still and cold as an ice sculpture that could crack or break if moved wrong.

No one speaks. 

Their closest safe house is five plus hours away, so Andy wordlessly makes her way to Booker’s place at only about two hours. Nile takes in the fairly clean, but old apartment. The kitchen felt worn, with peeling paint and chipped countertops. The windows were opaque with dust and age and the linoleum floor was yellowed. Thin carpet covered the rest of the space, as clean as it can look with stains that were no doubt decades old. There was a lumpy couch, some rickety dining room chairs that made Nile wonder if it would hold heavier weights like Booker or Joe. The furniture was sparse.

While it was clean for the most part, the sad evidence of Booker’s main dietary staple sat clearly in the open for everyone to see. The sink was filled with empty beer and whiskey bottles because there were already empty gin and vodka bottles in the small trash can under the sink. A few wine bottles were strewn along the counter. The living room area was not much better except the bottles had a few ounces waiting to be finished. At least he’d put the empty bottles in the sink and trash.

Nile felt sad looking at it all. Booker was an empty, lonely drunk. Andy paused before walking into the apartment, seemingly unbothered except for the flash of pity Nile was surprised she caught in her green eyes.

Booker immediately began to pick up, trying to clear the bottles and stick them in the bare cupboards. Joe and Nicky stood just inside the doorway, unmoving as Booker continued to clear space. So, Nile helped. After a few minutes, they had cleared enough space to seat people on the two creaky chairs, three on the couch, and whatever available counter space someone was willing to hoist themselves up and onto.

“Tomorrow, we will head to the Flam safe house.” Andy said as she gently led Quynh to the couch. The other woman sat woodenly, giving no indication she was listening or paying attention to the things around her.

“Norway,” Joe informed Nile when she gave him a questioning look.

“I think we need to take a few months. We can ride out the winter there.” Andy continued.

“Boss,” Nicky starts, “Maybe Joe and I-”

“Are staying,” Andy finished for him. “None of us are going anywhere for a while. You agreed to this arrangement. You both are sticking. We all are.”

Nicky heaved a breath. “Fine. I am going to get groceries since the only thing in this place seems to be strong liquor and liquid bread.” He eyed the few bottles they couldn’t fit into the cabinets. He moved to the door, his husband right behind him.

When they were gone, Nile turned to Booker. “Booker, you got a first aid kit?”

“Under the sink in the bathroom,” he croaked back.

She nodded. “We gotta stitch you up, Andy.”

“Only if you bring me one of those.” The older woman points to a half empty bottle of vodka before starting to the bathroom. She paused to tuck a piece of fine dark hair in front of Quynh’s face behind her ear before leaving the room.

The marine moved to pick up the bottle but muttered under her breath as she left. “For sterilizing purposes only.”

This left Booker and Quyhn alone in the room. Silence passed. Booker shrugged and pulled out one of the bottles he just put away, easing himself into one of those chairs that now protested with a groaning creak. More silence. He took a drink. And another.

“I’m sorry I killed you.” Quynh’s soft voice broke the silence.

Booker barked an unamused laugh. “Doesn’t really matter does it? Besides, I’m pretty sure most of the others think I deserve it and more. Don’t be sorry on my account.”

More silence. Booker drank more.

“I dreamed of you, too.” Quyhn said, still not looking at him. She stared at the peeling wall paper, her gaze arrested by it.

Booker paused. He hadn’t thought of the dreaming as a two-way street in all honesty. He had always tried to avoid the dreams, drinking them away or refusing to sleep for days on end. He had figured she’d been too busy drowning to dream.

“In the moments between being dead and alive, I dreamed of you. I could feel it all when I did.”

“Feel what?” He asked.

“The pain.” She whispered. “That gut wrenching pain inside your chest that no knife or bullet matches. The grief, so overwhelming you drown in it. You can’t breathe and each moment is a panic filled gasp that only fills you up with more grief and you realize that it will inevitably take you with it into the depths.” After this she turned to look at him, dark haunted eyes that made Booker suppress a shiver.

“I felt your loneliness. I know it just the same as my own. It makes you feral. Makes you want to lash out at anything that would end it and bring you love, just so that love would know how it abandoned you. How it gave you warmth and assurance, only to take it away and leave in its place the ugliness of life without it.”

Booker’s stomach roiled with the alcohol he’d just consumed. He may as well have been standing there naked, unarmed, as laid bare as he felt at that moment. It was horrifying, but freeing in a way. He recalled lying in that lab all those months ago, Andy staring blankly at the ceiling while Joe raged from the farthest table. Nicky vacillated between trying to calm him down and glancing miserably at Andy.

_“You selfish piece of shit” Joe had yelled._

_“What do you know of all the weight of all these years alone,” Booker had raged back at him. “You and Nicky always had each other. We only had our grief.”_

_“Well now you have even more.”_

Booker had been desperate in that moment. Desperate for them to see the breadth of all the pain, the grief, the loneliness. How it ate him from the inside out and filled his lungs until he wished for death just to not have to feel it any more. He just wanted them to _see_.

“They do not understand,” Quynh acknowledged. “But I do. That’s why I told them that I would only come if you did too.”

Booker risked another look at Quynh, noting her clenched hands and the near trembling of her body. Though she had escaped that iron coffin, she may as well have been carrying it on her back at that moment. In showing how much she understood him, she’d had to relive her own horror and pain for him to see in turn. Wordlessly, he angled himself towards her, elbows braced on his knees and his hands clasped lightly together. He waited.

Quynh took in a shaky breath. “I don’t want to hate them. But I do. I hate that they left me behind to live their lives. I hate that they left me behind and found you and Nile. They had each other and I had nothing. I was forgotten.” The last word was whispered. Then she was looking at the wall again.

“I told them I dreamt about you. Did it once, early on when they found me.” Booker said quietly. He didn’t know if she was really listening, but figured maybe hearing another voice might register through whatever kept pulling her back from reality.

“I only did it once. And then I stopped. Because the time I told them, when I described what you were suffering, I may as well have been taking a dagger to their chests, sliding it right between their ribs to their hearts.” He sighed, looking to the bottle he held in his hands as he recalled that moment. “Andy just went still. So still. Like a statue. It didn’t even look like she was breathing. She got this faraway look in her eyes…like her soul had left her body in that moment to try and find yours.”

Quynh blinked. It was quick, but he saw it.

“Joe was just the opposite. He wept. Put his head in his hands and sobbed your name and shook like an alcoholic in withdrawal. It’s so easy to read what Joe is feeling. It’s everywhere…in his face, his movements, his voice. His entire being was a dirge, a grief from the very depths of himself. No person could witness it and not taste the salt of his tears on their tongues.”

Her face turned towards him. Whoever thought that Joe was the only poet in the group was wrong.

“And Nicky. Poor Nicky. He was lost. He feels pain when others around him are in pain. One big ball of pain. He sat there imagining your anger and terror and could do nothing. He saw his soulmate’s heartbreak and could do nothing. He watched Andy, his sister and leader, fracture apart and he still could do nothing. His heart is so moved to kindness, he wanted to alleviate their pain…your pain. But he could only embrace them to keep them from tearing apart, because if they broke, he would too.”

Quynh’s dark eyes filled with tears, but they didn’t fall, just welled in pools that collected on her eyelashes.

“I never knew you,” Booker continued quietly. “But I knew how much you meant to them because it was measured by their grief. You were never forgotten.” His voice was hoarse. It was the longest he had ever spoke to a human being in months. They sat together in silence for another moment before cursing could be heard from the bathroom.

“I was going to drink that.”

“I have to clean the wound, Andy. Besides, we’ve talked about your drinking now that you’re mortal.”

“Which means that I should be able to enjoy the years I have left- ow-fuck.”

“Just hold still, Andy.”

“Your bedside manner is lacking, kid.”

“Field medicine. You know how it is.”

\- - -

That night, Joe and Nicky took the bedroom. Booker never used it anyhow. Nile was asleep on one end of the couch with Quynh dead to the world on the other. That just left Andy and Booker siting at the worn, pathetically small excuse for a dining room table. A bottle was being passed between them, an uninterrupted rhythm. Andy took a drink. She passed the bottle to Booker. Booker paused for a bit. Booker took a drink. He passed the bottle to Andy who paused for a bit and then drank. And so, it had gone for the past few hours.

Andy took a swig and then handed it to Booker. “It’s my fault, Book,” she admitted quietly, staring at Quynh as she slept.

Booker paused and then took a drink. “What is, Andy?” He expected her to talk about Quynh. They had been through it so many times over the decades. Could she have done something different? Should she have kept looking? He was surprised when her gaze turned to him.

“I knew how low you were, Book. But I didn’t step in to help you. All I did was commiserate and bitch about our life and the world. I lent you my cynicism and apathy and you lent me yours, and we both pulled each other down. And I’m sorry for that, Book.” He looked into her green eyes, surprised at the depth of guilt that swam through their depths.

“Boss, it’s pretty selfish of you to take the blame for everything that goes wrong in our lives. No, this one is mine to regret. Not yours.”

She shook her head, brown swooping bangs swinging across her vision for a moment. “I should have done better to help you. I didn’t see how much pain you were in.”

“Because I didn’t let you see. I didn’t let anyone _truly_ see.” As much as he wanted them too. He wondered if it was because he was a masochistic martyr or if he was afraid and too much a coward.

“I’m going to do better, Book. The years I have left, I’m gonna do better.”

Booker couldn’t bring himself to face the earnestness in her face. Coward, after all. So he took her hand in his and held it and said what he did have the strength to say. “I’m so glad that that day my exile started wasn’t the last time I got to see you, Andy.”

She gave him a small smile, using her other hand to grip the back of his neck comfortingly. Quynh shifted restlessly, bringing an end to the moment. They both turned to check in on the woman, watching to make sure she settled.

“I can’t believe she made it out. That she’s here,” Booker commented in disbelief. “She’s still not alright. What’s next, Boss?”

“We get to the Flam safe house and we try to figure this all out.” Andy swiped the bottle from him this time rather than waiting for it and Booker chuckled.

“You happy, Boss? Even knowing how much of a shit storm we all are right now?”

Andy passed the bottle back and gave him a small grin. “Yeah, Book. I’m happy. It’s gonna be rough, but we will get there.” She waited for him to tip the bottle to his mouth when she asked. “How did Quynh get the drop on you?”

He coughed and spluttered, trying not to wake the rooms occupants. “Honestly Boss, I-uh, I kind of just let her. Did what she wanted.”

“What?!” Andy hissed.

Booker shrunk his shoulders to his ears like a defensive turtle, hunching down into his seat. “I just…didn't see the point of resisting, Boss. All I did was take her to one of your caches to get her weapons you kept and stopped at that damn farm when she told me too. I was fine with it all until she just lost it. She drowned me for hours in one of the farm’s cisterns. Not pleasant. I commiserate with her now. And then she drop kicked me into that silo! How that slim water nymph managed to launch me into that hatch, I don't know. Broke my back on the corn unloader inside before I fell into the corn and then I just slipped under. It was kind of boring just carting her around till then.”

He stopped his rambling when Andy just glared at him. He sighed.

“Honestly, Boss, I just…didn't see the point in resisting. I didn't care what happened to me at that point. I just…didn't care.” He shrugged.

Andy finally relented. “Whatever your reasoning, Sebastian Le Livre, I am never gonna let you live it down.

Booker chuckled. “Wouldn’t expect you to.”

And that’s the moment that bullets tore through the thin walls of his apartment.

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual, anything google translate that has a better option feel free to let me know. there are some long sentences that, while i like visually seeing different languages rather than just italics, i couldn't bring myself to REALLY butcher a language for that many sentences. if someone fluent wants to translate it, your welcome to. 
> 
> I've got a side story after this one about Nicky and Joe's trip to the store while this story happened. i might post that one next before getting back to bullets and the immortal family on the run.


End file.
